Case study · Software & subscriptions
Recurring revenue that finance can close on
Subscription businesses bill the same customers every month, with upgrades, downgrades and usage charges in between. This is how we ran contracts, billing and revenue recognition in Business Central so MRR, deferred revenue and invoices come from one source.
Project overview
Recurring billing and revenue recognition in Business Central.
- Industry
- Software & subscriptions
- Client
- Confidential
- Solution
- Subscription billing
- Platform
- Business Central
- Timeline
- 10–16 weeks
- Team
- 3 people
- Billing
- Monthly, annual, usage-based
- Payments
- Card and direct debit
- Deployment
- Business Central online
Expected business outcomes
What the client set out to achieve
Billing accuracy and a month-end that doesn't depend on spreadsheets are the main gains.
-
Hours
To run the monthly billing
Invoices generated from contracts and usage in one run.
Instead of days of spreadsheet preparation
-
Automatic
Deferred revenue
Annual prepayments released to revenue month by month with a full audit trail.
Where contracts are maintained in the system
-
1–3%
Revenue leakage recovered
Price rises, usage overages and expired discounts applied as the contract says.
Target range; depends on how billing was checked before
Business challenges
How billing worked before
Billing began in a spreadsheet when there were twenty customers and never left.
Contracts
Terms live in signed PDFs and a CRM field that isn't always updated.
Billing
A monthly spreadsheet lists who to invoice and for how much.
Usage
Usage data exported from the product and pasted into the billing sheet.
Deferrals
Annual invoices deferred manually with journal entries each month.
Metrics
MRR and churn calculated differently by finance and the sales team.
Proposed solution
What the Business Central build covers
Contracts become records in Business Central, and billing and deferrals run from them.
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Subscription contracts
Plans, prices, start and renewal dates, discounts and notice periods per customer.
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Recurring billing
Monthly and annual invoices in one billing run, with proration for changes.
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Usage import
Usage from the product imported daily and billed against allowances.
-
Revenue recognition
Deferral schedules release revenue over the service period.
-
Payment collection
Card and direct debit payments matched to invoices, with dunning for failures.
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MRR reporting
MRR, churn and expansion from contract data finance agrees with.
Project requirements
What the client asked us for
The request was to stop billing from a spreadsheet. The design starts with the contract record, because billing, revenue and metrics all depend on it being right.
Changes mid-term are the hard part: upgrades, seat changes and early renewals need clear proration rules agreed before anything is built.
What the project had to deliver
- 01Contracts as data, not PDFs
- 02One billing run per month
- 03Automatic deferrals
- 04One MRR number
Key challenges & considerations
What made it harder, and what we did
-
Bespoke terms for large customers
What we did
Bespoke terms were held on the contract itself, so large customers billed correctly without workarounds.
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Usage data with gaps or duplicates
What we did
Usage data was validated daily, with gaps and duplicates flagged before they could reach an invoice.
-
Several currencies and tax regimes
What we did
Currency and tax were set per customer and tested on sample invoices for every regime.
-
Historic contracts to migrate mid-term
What we did
Mid-term contracts were migrated with their remaining term and reconciled to the last invoice sent.
What we watched for
- Agree proration rules before building
- Reconcile migrated contracts to the last invoices
- Validate usage data daily
- Define MRR once, with finance and sales together
Development process
Contracts first, billing second
The contract data is migrated and checked before the first invoice is produced.
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Billing rules
Plans, proration, renewals and usage rules agreed and written down.
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Contract migration
Active contracts loaded and checked against the last billing run.
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Billing and usage
Recurring billing and usage import built and run in parallel for a month.
-
Revenue and payments
Deferral schedules and payment collection configured and reconciled.
-
Reporting
MRR and churn dashboards agreed with finance and sales.
Technology stack
Business Central with subscription billing
Business Central subscription billing features or an extension, depending on the rules needed.
ERP
- Business Central
- Subscription billing
- Deferral templates
Integration
- Usage API
- CRM sync
- Payment provider
Reporting
- Power BI
- MRR dashboards
Controls
- Approval of contract changes
- Audit trail
Quality assurance & deployment
Proved on the client's own data before go-live
An ERP is trusted when the numbers agree. Configuration and extensions were tested in a sandbox on the client's own data, and finance signed off the figures before cut-over.
- Sandbox testing of every process on the client's own data
- User acceptance testing with key users, by scenario
- Migration rehearsals, reconciled to the old system
- Automated tests for extensions, run before each release
- Permission sets checked role by role
Deployment
- 01Revenue and paymentsDeferral schedules and payment collection configured and reconciled.
- 02ReportingMRR and churn dashboards agreed with finance and sales.
- 03Cut-over planA rehearsed cut-over with a checklist, opening balances signed off by finance, and a rollback point.
- 04Hypercare and warrantyConsultants on hand through the first month-end, and six months of free bug fixing.
Final deliverables
Billing that follows the contract
Every invoice is generated from a contract record, usage is billed automatically, and deferred revenue releases itself month by month.
Finance and sales finally report the same MRR, because it is calculated from the same contracts.
- Contract-driven invoicing
- Usage billing without spreadsheets
- Automatic revenue recognition
- One agreed MRR
Handed over to the client
- 01Configured Business CentralProduction and sandbox environments
- 02ExtensionsSource code and documentation
- 03Migrated dataReconciled and signed off
- 04Key-user trainingWith process guides
- 05Six-month warrantyFree bug fixing after delivery
Success metrics
How success is measured
| Measure | Outcome | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|
| To run the monthly billing | Hours | Instead of days of spreadsheet preparation |
| Deferred revenue | Automatic | Where contracts are maintained in the system |
| Revenue leakage recovered | 1–3% | Target range; depends on how billing was checked before |
Verified reviews
What clients say about our Dynamics work
Verified reviews from our clients on the same kind of work, published on Clutch.
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